British shell procurement and testing had failed to keep pace with major advances in guns and armour since the early 1900s. Manufacturers benefited from familiar tests that their products could reliably pass, while a tougher standard risked exposing earlier purchases as inadequate. A reliable shell had to preserve its containment and detonate at the intended point, rather than merely carry the largest possible explosive filling. That distinction makes an earlier reform plausible without assuming that a named 1918 shell appears unchanged in 1916.
Chapter · 0:00-5:05
The counterfactual is better shell quality control
The scenario asks what changes if the Royal Navy tests and controls shell quality before Jutland, rather than simply issuing later Greenboy ammunition early.